While this tutorial is nice and you've put lots of work and time into it...It's still DAUNTING to see the huge amount of work it takes to have a "working" system, something that fits your needs. And yet, Ubuntu is supposed to be the most user-friendly. Look at the huge tutorials on the Ubuntu Forum...With unexpected results and lots of tweaking. Crazy. When I think about a friend I visited these days, who baught a brand new laptop with Windows 7 and who was mad at the computer because it was always interfering, asking to update AsusBios Update, Default Browser selection. She said she would be a lot of money to get rid of these annoyances. She never knows what to respond when these message pop up. I thought...Try Linux, you'll see what a headache and waste of time mean. And we're in 2012 and things haven't changed much.

The sad thing is that these extra unique features are just there so they can write something on the box, like free* virus scanner, hard disk saver or privacy tools. But you can get this stuff for free and it's probably better then these 30 day or 6 month crappy products.

This is what I miss from the 8 and 16 bits days. Since the computers and OS were most of the time from the same vendor, there was no OEM differentiation stuff.

The differentiation was achieved by having different types of hardware+OS systems in the market.

Hm, there was just not much of a difference between most of them in the first place - basically just two common types of CPUs, similarly meagre amounts of memory, virtually the same form-factor across the board, in almost all examples not much of an OS to speak about (usually just something from the two or three families of very similar BASICs), very few of the available types having some nice support chips (sound and gfx; luckily, those few types which had them were generally the most popular machines - due to nicest looking games, obviously, but those didn't touch the OS, and multi-platforms titles still often partly suffered for a sort of least common denominator effects)

And this whole tight tying of hw and sw was probably why, say, Amiga had issues with progressing beyond the A500 generation.

The times are better... (plus, the type of toying around as with micros is more or less available on ~embedded stuff)

It's still DAUNTING to see the huge amount of work it takes to have a "working" system

I have a working system out of the box. It's called Unity.

something that fits your needs.

Uh, use a different distro? If you don't like how Ubuntu does things use something else. They have their ideas and designs and if you don't like them that's your problem.
This is like buying a Cooper Mini and complaining about how hard it is to make it behave and look like a Volkswagen Beetle.
Design is not about pleasing everyone, it's about having a vision that you stick to and implement.

Uh, use a different distro? If you don't like how Ubuntu does things use something else. They have their ideas and designs and if you don't like them that's your problem.

I have tried similar distros (the ones that fit me most). But despite lots of efforts, Mint wouldn't install on my computer (I gave up). I ended up with Ubuntu which didn't fit my needs because all my computer music applications and plugins (VSTIs) didn't work properly with WINE, and when they did, they underwent latency. No, I don't want to use the amateuristic computer music applications that were designed for Linux. Using a different distro won't help in this case.

Exactly. I once used Slackware and Ubuntu depending on the machine in question (I've always had better luck with Ubuntu than Slackware on laptops). But when Slackware dropped Gnome and it became a headache to deal with third-party replacement packages, and then Ubuntu went with Unity, I switched to Arch Linux.

All that said, for some people simply switching to a new distro can be more frustrating and labor-intensive than just learning to like Unity or replacing it with Gnome. For those people's sake, I'm glad Mr. Fosdick posted the article.

I would suggest to anyone willing to switch distros, if you want something as easy to use and learn as Ubuntu but with a more classic Gnome interface, go with Linux Mint.

That is something we retailers have been saying for years, "Just give us something simple our users can use and we'll support you" but it falls on deaf ears. too many including devs in the community wear obtuse and fiddly like badges of honor, like you have to "earn" the right to use their precious OS. Look at the flame wars all over the net when that article came out that said that maybe, just maybe, CLI should be kept for servers while GUIs should be the order of the day for home users.

What we retailers need is SIMPLE, something our users can just plug in and go and Linux is so far from that it isn't even funny. sure it works OOTB...until you apply the updates, then the drivers break and its welcome to forum hunts. Ubuntu is one of the worst because while it was SUPPOSED to be for average folks they always went so bleeding edge their CDs might as well have had stigmata and their LTS are anything but, you might as well be handed a sheet that says "These are all the problems you have now that won't be fixed until you leave LTS!" because all the bug fixes end up in version + 1.

Its sad, that's what it is, to see MSFT practically handing a second free shot to FOSS with the cell phone OS mess that is Win 8 only for nobody to be willing to step up and take those customers. Instead they will continue to believe the delusion that inside every Suzy the checkout girl there is a bash programmer waiting to come out and if only Suzy would embrace the "power" of CLI like its the fricking force the world would be kittens and pie. Instead Suzy will stick with win 7 or buy an iPad and things just never get any better.

Nice but...
Member since:
2009-08-20
While this tutorial is nice and you've put lots of work and time into it...It's still DAUNTING to see the huge amount of work it takes to have a "working" system, something that fits your needs. And yet, Ubuntu is supposed to be the most user-friendly. Look at the huge tutorials on the Ubuntu Forum...With unexpected results and lots of tweaking. Crazy. When I think about a friend I visited these days, who baught a brand new laptop with Windows 7 and who was mad at the computer because it was always interfering, asking to update AsusBios Update, Default Browser selection. She said she would be a lot of money to get rid of these annoyances. She never knows what to respond when these message pop up. I thought...Try Linux, you'll see what a headache and waste of time mean. And we're in 2012 and things haven't changed much.
Ubuntu never was the "easiest linux", it was just the most popular for personal use. Since Unity arrived Ubuntu has dropped in popularity. If you check out Distrowatch you will see Mint is much more popular these days. Installation is dead simple and in most instances it "just works".

Ubuntu never was the "easiest linux", it was just the most popular for personal use. Since Unity arrived Ubuntu has dropped in popularity. If you check out Distrowatch you will see Mint is much more popular these days.

More general web stats, while obviously also flawed, are probably flawed much less ...and there happens to be one with per-distro breakdown on one group of very popular websites - summary of all requests on Wikimedia services:

This is not about a "working" system. It's about personal preferences.

A fresh Ubuntu install is a working system - Unity or not.

Personally I hate the global menu with a vengeance. But it does work and plenty of Mac users are fairly satisfied with it.

I have a script ready in my Ubuntu One with a handful of changes. On every new install I run that script and after a few seconds everything is set to my preferences (kill global menu, default nautilus to list, etc...). But the default did "work".

A fresh Ubuntu install is actually a more working system than a fresh Windows of Mac Box. You get a good set of free applications out of the box that on other platforms have to be installed afterwards.

Sure if you like things different than the default you have to invest some time into tweaking it a bit. But the same is true for people who dislike some defaults on Windows. There you also would have to change registry settings and/or install utilities to change look and behaviour (for example to get multiple workspaces). And if you don't like a default setting on Mac you have to work to change that too. I doubt that the global menu can be get rid off on a Mac.

Ubuntu/Linux is not perfect. And all the systems have their strengths and weaknesses.
But don't mistake a discussion about personal preferences (which vary a lot) with a "working system".

A fresh Ubuntu install is actually a more working system than a fresh Windows of Mac Box. You get a good set of free applications out of the box that on other platforms have to be installed afterwards.

That's why there are alternatives like Mint with Cinnamon that will take care of your needs. Look, if Unity isn't for you, great, choose another distro. This "work" is absolutely unnecessary if you choose the right distro FOR YOURSELF from the beginning.